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Introducing the Dodgers’ alternate road jersey

By Mark Langill

After alternating between “Los Angeles” and “Dodgers” road jerseys since moving to the West Coast in 1958, both styles will be used during the 2014 season. The team will wear “Dodgers” for the regular-season opener in Australia on March 22, as seen in the images here with Hyun-Jin Ryu, Matt Kemp and Brian Wilson.

“Because we are equally proud of our iconic brand name and the city we represent and with the number of Dodger fans across the country, we felt it important to have two sets of road jerseys to feature both the team name, as well as Los Angeles,” Dodger executive vice president and chief marketing officer Lon Rosen said.

When the Dodgers came to Los Angeles in 1958, the road jersey featured the name “Dodgers.” The next year, the team’s road jersey featured “Los Angeles” and continued that way through 1969. The team name returned to the jersey in 1970 through 1998, before the city name returned from 1999 to the present. The last time the Dodgers wore alternate jerseys was in 2011, when they wore powder blue Brooklyn jerseys for six home dates.

Although the uniform has undergone minor changes over the years, the basic look has remained the same since 1938 when the team was based in Brooklyn. Prior to 1938, the uniform style often changed, including a one-season experiment in 1937 with green-colored “Brooklyn” lettering across the chest.

Former Dodger first baseman Wes Parker, who this week participated along with other Dodger Legends on the team’s community caravan, values the throughline of the team’s uniform, bridging the generations.

“When I played with the Dodgers, it meant I could wear the same jersey worn by Pee Wee Reese, Gil Hodges and Duke Snider – my heroes,” said Parker, who won six Gold Gloves during his career from 1964-72. “I loved when they added the red number under the lettering in the early 1950s. When I wear the jerseys these days at community events, it’s a wonderful badge of honor for me to carry into the world. And not many of us get to do that. It’s prestigious, it gets instant recognition and it means I once played for this ballclub.”

Below, from Spring Training 1946, Stan Rojek and Gene Hermanski are nicely lined up to show the back-and-forth of the past.

very good observation David, I was think the exact same thing.
I keep seeing people saying they want the “FOX” era blue home jerseys, I think those should be banished like the shorts the White Sox wore once.

I have one of the first “new generation” road jerseys with “Los Angeles” (I think I got it in ’00? It was the year they had the “Dodger Heroes” sleeve patches—I got mine with the Steve Garvey patch) with the white outline behind the “Los Angeles,” lettering, which I think looks much better than the plain blue lettering they have now.

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